it has been noted that you may suffer from a sort of tunnel vision to an extent that your conclusions in this matter come across as pre-determined -- one dimensional and unexamined.

In any future debate I'll do me best to examine the breadth of a topic before throwing my 2.3 cents in (adjusted for the canadian dollar). _________________bi-chromaticism is the extraordinary belief that there exists only two options
each polar opposite to each other
where one is completely superior to the other.

ok so i saw this thing with this israeli commander guy and he was like "we warned the civilians in lebanon to get out because we new the hezbollah terrorists operated in homes, communitys, hospitals, schools, and are known to use ambulances and appear as normal citizens. Our goal is to eliminate the hezbollah while harming as few civilians as possible." and thats why they bombed houses and public beaches and roads with traffic and blah blah blah._________________"You should read your bibles sirs, you'll find all kinds of weird shit in there."
-Jay, Clerks II

al-Sadr rallies in support of Hezbollah, thousands turn out... and this is on the heels of generals testifying in front of Congress that Iraq could quite easily descend into civil war.

On the checklist of ways we can make Iran a regional power, have we left anything out?

NYTimes wrote:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 4 — Tens of thousands of followers of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr rallied in support of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah on Friday, denouncing Israel and the United States for igniting violence throughout the Middle East.

The protest, the largest of several demonstrations in Iraq since the Israeli-Lebanese conflict began three weeks ago, filled 20 blocks of a wide, squalid boulevard and dozens of side streets in the Shiite-dominated Sadr City section of the capital.

All but a handful of the demonstrators were men, mostly young, wearing white cloth to symbolize funeral shrouds. Some carried guns. Waving Lebanese flags and posters of Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, they shook their fists and shouted in unison against what they described as the enemies of all Muslims.

The United States and Iraq’s new Shiite-led government have been at odds over the Israeli-Lebanese conflict since it started. Hezbollah, a Shiite group with ties to Iran, inspires widespread support here among Shiites. At the protest, barefoot boys in camouflage T-shirts scampered after men handing out posters of Sheik Nasrallah, grabbing at them as if they were candy.

In an effort to tap into Hezbollah’s widening rings of support, Mr. Sadr’s deputies sought repeatedly to conflate the Sadr-led uprising against Americans in Najaf two years ago with Hezbollah’s current fight against Israel.

“This month is the anniversary of the Mahdi victories in Najaf and other provinces,” Hazem al-Aaraji, Mr. Sadr’s deputy, said in a speech to the crowd. “This month begins the sewing of a new robe of resistance in Lebanon.”

The peaceful show of force by Mr. Sadr — who called for the rally earlier this week — comes at a time of growing tensions between the American military and his organization. On Thursday, American troops killed at least two occupants of a vehicle carrying armed Shiites to the rally.

American and Iraqi forces have also recently conducted a series of raids on bases of Mr. Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army, and have arrested high-ranking militia leaders.

Several members of Mr. Sadr’s bloc in Parliament said in interviews that the organization did not deserve to be blamed for the rising number of reprisal killings that have shaken Iraq in recent months.

“These are false accusations made against Sadr and the Mahdi organization,” Falah Hassan Shanshal, a member of Parliament who serves as Mr. Sadr’s spokesman, said at the rally. Moments later the deep thud of a bomb sounded in the distance.

“You see,” he said, “this is the violence, this is the terror — it’s all being done by Baathists and Takfiris,” Mr. Shanshal said, referring to extremist Sunni groups. “We are here struggling and challenging the terrorism unarmed, in clothes of peace.”

Unfazed, he turned away seconds later to meet and greet his constituents.

An Interior Ministry official said later that the explosion was a mortar round that struck the edge of Sadr city, near a mosque. No one was hurt, he said.

A few hours later, three people returning home from the rally were killed and four others wounded when gunmen opened fire in the largely Sunni Dawra district of the city, the official said.

The United States military said that at least three suspected militants were killed in raids and an air strike south of Baghdad on Thursday afternoon.

Elsewhere in the country, fighting continued to rage. In Mosul, a series of car bombs targeting Iraqi policemen killed a battalion commander and several other officers hours after Iraqi forces arrested 27 suspected insurgents, according to a statement from the Iraqi Army. Gun battles after the bombing between police officers and insurgents prompted officials to impose a curfew until 1 p.m. on Saturday, police officials said.

In Baquba, American troops wounded one person and arrested eight others in a series of raids, according to an official statement.

In Ubaydi, a town in Anbar province on the Syrian border that American marines swept last year, three Iraqi civilians were killed and nine more wounded when a mortar round hit a family’s home, a statement from the Americans said.

Also in Anbar, two American soldiers from the First Armored Division died from “enemy action” on Friday, bringing the total number of soldiers and marines killed in August to at least eight.

Two days earlier, the top American marine commander, Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer, said violence in western Iraq was increasing.

“Right now, much like all of Iraq, the attack levels are up,” General Zilmer told The Associated Press.

But even as the marines continued to battle Sunni insurgents to the west — and as American troops were being sent to Baghdad to quell surging sectarian violence — Shiites at the rally rejected the idea that American forces could be allies or honest brokers between the warring sects.

“America is behind all the negative things and all the destruction here, and the sectarian violence too,” said Wathiq Naji, 28, a merchant from Kut who hired a taxi early Friday morning to reach the Sadr City demonstration. “America supports the terrorism. Islam supports the peace.”

_________________"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman